Burdens of the Past
by Dayja
Summary: Steve Rogers can't stand the things Tony Stark says about Howard. Howard was a good man. It's not like Howard ever hit Tony. It's not like Tony had to watch his father hit his mom. Steve should know what real abuse is. And one night in a fit of rage he tells Stark exactly that. Now Steve's tablet is acting up and Steve doesn't know why. Is this Stark's revenge?


Disclaimer: I do not own, am not associated with, make no money from the Avengers.

 **Warnings** : This story deals with the subject of child abuse in various forms, victim blaming, and brief mentions of unhealthy coping methods including self-harm.

This story is an answer to a prompt; for full details about the prompt see the end notes.

 **story**

Steve Rogers, despite having grown up in a time when a computer meant a person who does calculations, was not stupid. He might not be on the same level as Tony Stark, but he had, upon awakening from the ice, had the time to acquaint himself with the new technology.

So when he clicked open his email and instead somehow opened fifty tabs worth of webpages, none of which included his account, Steve understood well enough to know something wasn't right. At least they weren't to porn sites this time. That had been embarrassing. This, on the other hand, was just weird.

The top tab was to a Wikipedia article on Neglect. Steve cautiously glanced at a few more tabs, half afraid that clicking on them was going to make the problem worse, but his curiosity getting the better of him. The next tab was another Wikipedia article entitled 'Psychological Abuse'. The next finally veered away from Wikipedia to a more official looking source, some online medical journal exploring the ramifications of childhood psychological abuse in adult survivors. The next was another journal mostly made up of graphs depicting suicide rates in adults who were abused in childhood or adolescence. Steve was beginning to sense a theme. The next two tabs were to personal blog entries, then a YouTube clip, then more journals. Pages and pages of articles, accounts, and even entire books.

After getting a feel for what he was being bombarded with, Steve tried closing all the tabs. They closed without issue, and for a moment he thought maybe it was just a one-off, that maybe Steve had accidently hit a button without realizing. Maybe someone else had been doing research, and when he tried to open his email all their pages came back up. He started to feel a bit guilty that he had closed them.

Then he again went to open his email. This time there was closer to a hundred tabs. Steve closed the browser quickly. Cautiously, he tried the icon that usually brought up google. He could access his email from there.

Wikipedia popped up, still offering information on the subject of 'neglect'. With a growl of annoyance, Steve gave in. The tablet was obviously broken. It probably had a virus. He'd need help to fix it.

Thor was the first person he ran across.

"My friend!" Thor said when he saw Steve, "Come join me! I watch an educational program which depicts a portal that bridges time!"

Steve glanced at the television where a dinosaur sang to his friends about his love of meat. None of his friends seemed particularly alarmed by this, despite the fact that many of them were the first dinosaur's potential prey.

"Sorry," Steve answered, "I was just coming to see if I could get help with my tablet. I think it's broken."

"Alas," Thor answered, "I have not yet learned the intricacies to these creations of the Son of Stark. Also, I have found these tablets to be a tad on the flimsy side. My last three were fried beyond repair, and a fourth I fear I crushed in a moment of haste."

Steve smiled in appreciation. He felt understanding towards Thor; both of them had been cast into a world very different from their home and had to adapt to a new culture, both of them had a greater than average strength, both of them tended to speak using an outdated language. It led to assumptions that they were stupid oafs whose only purpose in life was to crush bad guys. Thor would not be Steve's first choice when it came to fixing electronics, but he was not stupid.

"Have you asked the ethereal servant for aid?" Thor asked. "I have found him most helpful with computer matters."

"Oh…right," Steve said. The truth was, the thought hadn't even occurred to him, though it was obvious once Thor had said it. Steve had been avoiding thinking about Stark, and JARVIS was very much Stark's creation.

"Mr. Jarvis?" Steve said, looking at the ceiling in lieu of anywhere more obvious to address.

"Yes sir," the polished British voice answered.

"Can you fix my tablet?"

There was a brief moment of silence.

"I detect nothing wrong with your tablet, sir," the voice said.

"Oh…well…thank you anyway." The voice didn't answer. Steve found himself waiting a few seconds longer, feeling unaccountably rather like he had been hung up on. That was another reason he avoided talking to JARVIS; there was something very disconcerting about talking to a person who was not really a person. Steve turned to sort of shrug sheepishly at Thor, intending to leave him and find someone who might actually help.

Thor didn't return his look, though. He looked troubled.

"I have never known Jarvis to fail in such a task," he said. "Just what difficulty has arrived with your tablet, friend Steve?"

"It keeps opening these random pages," Steve explained, holding out his tablet to show him. With great care, Thor tentatively grasped the tablet's edges and looked upon the pages. He read through the first page, then cautiously selected the next, and then the next.

"I see," he said. "These Midgardian healers have much wisdom to share."

"I suppose," Steve answered. "I haven't really read the pages. I just want to know how to make them stop popping up."

Thor looked down at the tablet, then up at the ceiling before his eyes leveled on Steve, a thoughtful and somewhat melancholy expression on his face.

"Friend Steve," he said, his voice strangely delicate, rather similar in fact to the way his strong hands carefully held Steve's tablet, "May I ask…have you, perhaps quarreled with Stark of late?"

"Not exactly," Steve answered. "There was an instance where he was being insensitive and I called him on it. Why…you don't think this is his revenge, do you? Surely even Stark isn't that childish!" Except it was exactly the sort of juvenile prank Steve could imagine Stark dreaming up, and it was certainly easily within his power to do so. It would also explain why JARVIS was unable to fix the problem.

"No," Thor answered, his voice still oddly subdued, "I do not believe friend Stark to be the one responsible for these pages. His revenge would be far more amusing, possibly employing pages of cats. This is, I think, more in the nature of one who wishes to educate."

"Then who…Banner?" Steve asked. Bruce certainly had his darker side, the giant rage beast was testament to that, and he certainly would be knowledgeable on medical journals. But why would Banner try to mess with his tablet like that?

"Friend Steve," Thor said, "This instance you had with Stark, what words did he say that you felt needed to be corrected?"

"It was about fathers," Steve answered, and already he could feel something unpleasant curling in his gut, something a bit like anger and a bit like grief.

He had been talking with Banner in a quiet moment, a bonding moment that should have been private, maybe even a bit healing, a way to share the weight of the past's inequities. It had been that before Stark's intrusion.

They had been having a team bonding session which had degenerated into watching a movie and throwing popcorn at each other. Stark had gone to his bar, because, as he said, "If we're going to do this, we need booze."

Thor had been delighted to discover Stark had stocked up on mead and Barton and Romanoff were ready to discover what made that drink 'worthy of the gods'. Stark had given Steve a look then, as though he expected Steve to object.

Then Stark had turned to Banner. Banner asked for tea.

"Come on," Stark had said, "It's all about trying new culture things. You're always wanting me to try your weird Indian fire dishes…here's my fire drink."

"Tea, please," Banner answered, his voice sounding strained, and after a moment of staring at Banner, Stark had shrugged and pulled out a bottle of iced tea.

"At least have an umbrella," Stark had said then, "Look, I have green ones! Sorry, Cap, no red white and blue…but wait, here's a red and here's a blue and…silver? That's almost like white, right?" So Stark had dragged all the attention back onto himself again and Banner had slunk away, the others not even noticing when the quiet man disappeared completely. Steve had given him ten minutes before he had followed.

"You don't have to worry about a green incident," Banner had said when Steve found him.

"I wasn't worried about that," Steve answered. "I just thought you might like someone to talk to."

Banner was quiet for so long that Steve thought he wasn't going to talk. Steve waited anyway. Sometimes just having someone nearby could be enough to help.

"It's the smell of alcohol," Banner said into the silence, his voice low, his hands clutched tight around his glass. "My dad was a drinker. You wouldn't have liked him. He was a bit of a bully. Used to knock my mom around. I don't mind it when people drink, but me drinking…it would be like I became my dad. I've always known a monster lived inside me, and its name isn't the Hulk."

"Stark shouldn't have pressured you," Steve said. "I can talk to him about that."

"He stopped," Banner answered. "Some people don't." Steve frowned at that, because he really didn't like bullies. They sat in silence for a bit longer.

"My dad used to hit my mom, before he left," Steve said into the silence. Banner glanced at him, and Steve felt his face heating up. He hadn't quite meant to say that. It was a piece of his past he didn't like to share. At the same time, it felt almost okay in this dark corner with another human being who could connect to what Steve felt, who maybe could take comfort from Steve's past.

"Did you ever try to stop him?" Banner asked.

"Every time. I didn't reach higher than his knees and I'd lift my fists and shout at him. He…he never hit me though. Sometimes I think that was worse. I was never hurt and I could never stop it."

"He always started on me," Banner said, "And she'd try and stop him and he'd hurt her. It was always her that hurt and it was always my fault."

"It was never your fault," Steve said, because it needed to be said. Banner shrugged, then lifted his tea in the air as though to make a toast.

"Here's to having horrible fathers," he said.

"To being better than our fathers," Steve had answered, though he hadn't had a glass to raise. And it was in that moment that the third voice had intruded.

"There's a toast I can get behind. To having shitty dads."

Stark's intrusion had felt almost offensive. Steve had already been feeling raw, the ugliness in his past having been dredged up along and dragging with it the entirety of what he had lost to time, to the ice. With Banner, he had at least felt a connection. With Stark, well, Stark was denigrating what feeble tie Steve had left to the past, besmirching Howard's name.

In hindsight, Stark had probably turned up for the same reason Steve had; he had probably noticed Banner's disquiet and had gone to offer friendship. At that moment, all Steve could see was that he had been sharing horrific memories of a battered childhood with Banner, and here Stark was trying to act like he was one of them, like his poor relationship with Howard somehow entitled him to put his tragedy on the same level as theirs. He had no right to their pain.

"Did Howard hit you?" Steve demanded sharply, all the raw unpleasant past transforming in that moment into sheer anger.

"No," Stark answered, "He'd have had to have noticed me to do that."

"Did he hit your mom?"

"I doubt it," Stark said, his tone almost jovial, "She'd have hit back harder. Anyway, she was usually on a different continent."

"I get that you hate your dad," Steve said then, "But he was a good man. And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop painting him as a child abusing monster, because quite frankly, if all you had to worry about was your dad ignoring you, I'd say your childhood was pretty near ideal."

Stark had laughed, actually laughed at Steve's words. Like the whole thing was one big joke. It had taken all Steve's willpower not to take a swing at him. Steve would not be his father.

In the end, Stark had gone back to the party in the lounge and apparently gotten so blind drunk he'd passed out draped upside down on the sofa, Bruce had decided to do some meditation before going to bed, and Steve had spent the night in the gym. He hadn't talked to Stark since. It wasn't that Steve was avoiding him; he could admit that, while Stark was clearly out of line, Steve's emotions had been a bit raw at the time and he might have overreacted. At the very least, having a row in front of Banner hadn't been the best way to handle the situation.

He didn't tell Thor everything. Some of it was Banner's to tell, if he wanted to.

"I was talking to Banner," Steve told Thor instead, "About our fathers. About how my father hit my mom. And Stark came, and you know how he is about Howard. The Howard I knew was a good man, and Stark even admitted Howard never hit him or his mom. So I told him his childhood wasn't as rotten as he likes to act."

Thor was silent for a long moment, his eyes still turned towards Steve's tablet.

"My brother Loki was not born a monster," Thor said, his voice still oddly subdued and gentle. "As a child he was kindhearted and curious."

"I am sorry about…" Steve started to say; he knew how difficult Thor found his situation with Loki, but Thor held up a hand to silence him and continued to speak in that same gentle tone.

"My father never beat him, never even touched him. By adulthood, my father's cruel words and harsh silence turned that kindhearted boy into a murderous monster. There are many ways for a father to hurt their child, and not all of them leave bruises."

Steve could well believe that, because Thor's words, his admonishment, felt a bit like a punch to the gut.

"Howard was not a monster," Steve answered, his hands clinching into fists because he wasn't. Howard was a good man, and Stark was a spoiled foolish child who didn't know how good he had it.

"Neither was our father," Thor answered. "I love my father and I always will. I can love him and hate his actions that destroyed my brother."

Steve didn't have an answer to that. Thor looked down at the tablet then handed it back to Steve.

"My father helped to make my brother a monster. I think it says much of our friend Stark that he became a hero."

Steve wanted to say that it said a lot about Howard that his son became a hero, but somehow the look on Thor's face is so knowing and understanding that he can't say anything. Thor wanted Stark to be damaged because it explained how his own brother was damaged, how the child Thor remembered could grow into the villain he became.

"I believe that someone wishes for you to read these pages and learn," Thor said. "Perhaps if you read through them, you will find your problem fixed."

In the end, Steve went on his way and left Thor to his cartoon. Steve didn't take Thor's advice directly. Now that he knew someone had messed with his tablet deliberately, a part of him wanted to refuse to be bullied. On the other hand, how else was he ever going to get to read his email? The person most qualified to fix this was the person he least wanted to go to, and in even if he did what were the odds that Stark wouldn't just laugh in his face?

He couldn't just never check his email again. What if Fury sent him something important? There could be lives at stake. This really was a juvenile and unnecessary gesture.

"Fine," Steve said to the room, just in case the person behind the prank was somehow listening, "I'm reading them."

This time when he looked at the tabs, he found the first page to be someone's blog.

 _Today kinda sucked. Told a friend about my mom. He said it wasn't abuse because she never hit me. Like kids don't need a grown up to look after them; so long as they aren't being hit, they're fine. And words can't hurt, right? Anyway, she didn't need to hit me. I took care of myself and I took care of the pain all by myself too. Anyway, it's not like a competition to say who has it worst, the kid beaten to death or the kid starved of love or the kid starving because the parents don't bother to feed it or the kid called worthless and useless until the kid believes the words. Who can say what's worse? That's like telling someone whose mom just died that they can't grieve because someone else lost their child. My abuse was abuse and it's hard enough for me to face it without the world calling my abuse fake or whatever. So I told that friend that the 'not abuse' had me trying to kill myself five times and he kind of shut up after that. Still feeling a bit wrong. Haven't cut though, so yay for small achievements!_

The comments below the entry were supportive. None of them made any suggestion that the 'friend' might have been right.

The next tab was more scientific, one of the journal articles detailing the effects of neglect. Steve read through it, trying hard not to picture Stark as he read. Howard had been a good man. He wanted him to stay that way, forever frozen in Steve's memory at his moment of courageous hero. Howard lived in that moment alongside Peggy and Bucky and all the years of his past. He couldn't go home but he could remember.

Stark was not a bad man. He might behave like a spoiled child, but when the time came, Stark was very much the sort of man to sacrifice himself to the greater good. Steve had fought with Ironman enough times to recognize that hadn't been a one off, either. If anything, for all his talk about 'cutting the wire', Ironman had no difficulty throwing himself in harm's way.

In the end, the mysterious hacker only made Steve read through three of the pages before they brought Steve's email up. There was an email from Stark. More specifically, there was an email with a voice message from Stark.

'Yeah…so…last night is kind of hazy but I feel like I owe you an apology? So anyway, whatever you want, name it, I buy it or build it and we can get back to bonding like good teammates do.'

If he had listened to the message before talking to Thor, before reading the articles, Steve knew he would have been furious. He would assume this another juvenile stunt with Stark throwing his riches in Steve's face. He would have heard how Stark didn't even remember what had been said and he would have felt disappointed and resentful and enraged. He could feel all those things somewhere in his chest even now, but they were rather blanketed by the overwhelming sense of grief and remorse.

Remorse because Steve was beginning to understand that he might have offered Stark a disservice.

Greif because he was just beginning to accept the man Stark spoke of and the man he knew are the same man and that a little piece of his past has somehow been lost.

In the end, all he really knows is that Thor was right. Not all pain leaves bruises.

"Mr. Jarvis?" he says, eyes turned not towards the ceiling but towards the floor. "Where is Stark right now?"

"Sir is in his lab. Shall I tell him you are coming?"

"I think I owe him an apology," Steve answered. "And maybe…maybe we should talk. I could get to know Tony. And he could get to know me."

The hard lump of homesickness and pain is still there, lodged in his chest. It would probably always be there. But as he walks to the elevator and JARVIS opens the door, he is surprised to feel lighter. A bit like how he felt talking to Banner the night before. The weight of the past is a heavy burden. Perhaps it's time to let some of it go.

End Notes:

Prompt: I just read a fic where Steve essentially tells Tony that he should stop complaining about his father being too busy for him because at least he didn't hit him like his own father did his mother and that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Someone (Avenger or otherwise) hears Steve dismiss Tony's feelings of animosity towards Howard because he thinks that Tony is just complaining about not being the center of attention for his father.

They set Steve straight by telling that neglect of a child's emotional needs counts as abuse and that just because it isn't as severe as actual beatings does not make it any less of an atrocity.

Bonus: Steve is not immediately convinced, but it's enough for him to start doing research on child abuse himself.

Bonus 2: He realizes that he crossed a line and goes to apologize to Tony.


End file.
